Geology of the Naparima Region of Trinidad, British West Indies

Abstract

In the middle of the Island of Trinidad, south of the Central Range, is a broad undulating lowland. It stretches across the Island at its narrowest part, practically in the latitude of San Fernando. Towards the west it is the heart of the sugar-cane industry; towards the east it merges into the low ground of the Nariva, a derelict lowland of forest and swamp. It is to the western portion of this lowland that the name Naparima is usually applied. The present paper is concerned with the area extending from the Gulf of Paria on the west to Princes Town on the east. Its northern boundary is formed by the foothills of the Central Range, while on the south it extends practically to the Oropuche lagoon, a total area of approximately 35 square miles. The Naparima area includes a large portion of the famous black soils of Trinidad, which have been utilized extensively for sugar-cane plantations. From it almost every vestige of the primitive forest has long been removed, and the undulating lowland is now one broad expanse of cane-fields, while in places a less fertile patch is given over to grass or guava scrub. From the distance it looks like one broad plain, but actually it is covered almost entirely by a complicated valley-system, leaving the intermediate high ground as a ‘fingering’ system of hog-backed ridges. These practically all attain the same general height, and are the remnants of an uplifted and partly dissected peneplain, tilted gradually westwards to